Sad News

Last night my Grandma passed away. She was such a beautiful, strong person and the rock of my family.

Words cannot express how much I will miss her.

I love you Grandma.

Meatless Monday - Roasted Garlic Hummus

I love hummus, it makes such a satisfying dip and spread for sandwiches. Its too expensive to buy pre-made all the time so I like to whip up a cheaper version at home. I used to use only chickpeas but I saw someone once make it with great northern beans and have made it that way since.  Jeff also is a fan of the northern beans, it is slightly creamer and sweeter than chickpeas. I omit the Tahini usually used in hummus cause frankly I have a hard time finding it here and it saves me a little extra $$.

Roasted Garlic Hummus

Ingredients:

• 1 (15oz) can of Great Northern Beans
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
• 1 bulb garlic
• salt & pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cut top off garlic bulb and drizzle a little olive oil on the cut portion.  Place on baking sheet top side up and roast in oven for 40 minutes.  Cool and the roasted garlic should be able to be easily squeezed from the skin.

2. In a food processor combine the can of beans (drained), olive oil, lemon juice, roasted garlic cloves, salt & pepper. Pulse till smooth.

My delicious lunch veggie wrap: tortilla with hummus spread, grated carrots, onion, spinach, cucumber and sliced tomato.

Yum Yum!

The Daring Cooks May Challenge - Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas

Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Food have chosen a delicious Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce was found on www.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh. 

I finally invited my sister & husband over for a Daring Cooks Challenge recipe and they were in for a treat. I have made enchiladas before but never with my own homemade tortillas and enchilada sauce.
The end result was fabulous, really authentic and totally homemade (even the chicken stock). I got the recipe for homemade tortillas from Mangio da Sola, really easy to follow and great instructional video.  To put it all together I poured some of the green chile sauce in a casserole dish, then placed the tortilla, cover in sauce, monterey jack cheese, grilled chicken, cheese, sauce, another tortilla etc... till I had a stack four tortilla high.  Bake in oven at 450 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

I will definitely be making this again, it was just too delicious! 

I also enjoyed the challenge of actually not getting my enchilada sauce from a can. Tomatillos are something I pass by in the supermarket (this was the first time I have ever even picked one up) so it was great to take a crack at this never used vegetable.

 Making the enchilada sauce was actually pretty easy ... roasting the fresh chilies in our oven was quite the adventure. My birds let me know when they needed to be taken out by their squawking... boy the air in our house was spicy!  It was actually fun to burn something on purpose, this is something I can definitely do! Check out the before and after pictures:

After charring the chilies close in a paper bag till cooled, then scrape skins off with a knife.  I made sure I wore gloves to remove the skins, getting pepper in your eye is something you will always remember and never, hopefully, repeat. Discard the skins and seeds and you are left with flavorful chilies (do not rinse with water).

Green Chile Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1½ pounds Fresh Anaheim chiles (about eight 6 to 8 inch chiles), Charred & skins removed
• 4-6 Tomatillos, stems & outer papery skin removed 
• 4 cups Chicken broth
• 1 clove Garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons yellow onion, minced
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• ½ tsp Kosher salt (add more to taste)
• ¼ tsp Black Pepper (add more to taste)
• 2 tablespoons Cornstarch (dissolve in 2 tablespoons water, for thickening) 
• Couple dashes of Hot sauce (optional)

1. Place tomatillos in a medium sauce pan with water and bring to a boil. Boil for 5-10 minutes till soft. Remove from water and puree in blender till smooth.  

2. Pour puree into saucepan with chicken stock, chopped green chilies, onion, oregano, garlic, salt & pepper. Adjust salt & pepper to your taste. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer for 10 minutes.

3. Add the cornstarch that has been dissolved in water and simmer again for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add hot sauce if you want more heat.

Sweet Zucchini Bread

Kittens have been on my mind lately, I want one so bad but can't!  We have two parakeets who usually spend half their day flying around outside their cage and we don't want to walk in on them acting out an episode of Spartacus (you know, the last episode).  So cute pictures will have to do for now .... of course kittens that look like loaves of bread is especially high on my awwww factor.

Speaking of bread....
I had some leftover zucchini from the veggie lasagna and I couldn't help but think of my mom's Zucchini Bread we used to love growing up. I was too impatient to get her recipe (I want it NOW) so I found a really good one on Allrecipes.com.
Wow this was a good recipe, very moist and the crust was almost like a crumbly pie crust.  The smell of cinnamon in the house had Jeff climbing the walls, he couldn't wait till it was done.  I highly recommend trying this, its simple, fast, and (kinda) nutritious .... it has zucchini in it so that counts right?  Of course I had to add a 1/4 cup chocolate chips in the food processor with the walnuts.  They were dark chocolate chips....for our health you know  ;)

Zucchini Bread Recipe Link

Meatless Monday - Veggie Lasagna

Welcome to Meatless Monday week three!
I have to say that we actually looked forward to today.  Though there are plenty of days where we don't eat meat & not notice we have made Mondays into "Get-some-more-veggies-into-your-belly Meatless Mondays!". 
Jeff actually got excited when I told him what we are having for lunch ... is this the same pizza every night guy I married?

Breakfast

• Oatmeal with honey and cinnamon

Lunch

• My Super Green Sandwich

Dinner

• Veggie Lasagna

For this I make my Mama's Lasagna just like normal except where there is meat I sauté grated onion, minced garlic, thinly sliced zucchini & squash, grated carrot, and chopped broccoli.  Add all the tomato sauces when the veggies are softened and simmer for 10 minutes.  For the ricotta mixture I substituted half cottage cheese and added spinach that has been steamed & drained.  Cram more vegetables in if you want, there can never be too much!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day Mom! 

I love you!

Anniversary Dinner

We had such a nice wedding anniversary yesterday.  Instead of going out to eat I thought it would be fun if Jeff & I made a meal together, and of course what could be more romantic than rolling out pasta dough. :)
My mom had sent me two different things to help me with my ravioli making and we took them for a test drive.  The first is a really old ravioli press that crimped out nice large pieces.

The second is a multi-ravioli maker / press.

 It didn't come with instructions so we had fun playing around with it trying to figure out the best method to press it out (I liked the "let Jeff do it" method the best). 

I have to say my ravioli looked pretty professional and all nice and neat, plus less messy than before....Thanks mom !!
Making dinner together for our anniversary was really fun, I think this may become a delicious tradition.

To many happy cooking memories to come....

Cheers!

Meatless Monday - "Meaty Quesadilla"

Meatless Monday Number 2!
I found an excellent way to use leftover filling from the Lentil Walnut Mushroom burgers... make some quesadillas!  This was super filling and a big hit with the man. Its also a great way to use leftovers from the meatless burgers making it fast to whip up.

This was also my first attempt at making homemade tortillas, I love how rustic it looks

Follow the recipe for Lentil Walnut Burgers until you get to the part where you form them into patties.
Put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a large frying pan and fry up the filling as if it was ground beef until browned.  Place a large clean frying pan on medium / med high heat on the stove.  Get a tortilla and spread lentil mixture evenly on one side, place in frying pan lentil side up.  Sprinkle some cheese and spinach on filling and cover with another tortilla.  It will be ready when the cheese is all melted.  Serve with a side of salsa!